


First Position

by encanta



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU post Avengers, Ballet, Can you blame her?, F/M, Natasha's going to dark places, Not Beta Read, Trust Issues, somewhat angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 13:41:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/encanta/pseuds/encanta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Her favorite memory is also her most despised."</p>
<p>A series of Natasha-centric vignettes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Position

Her favorite memory is also her most despised. There’s a long wall of mirrors and a young Natasha, then Natalia Alianovna, holds onto a balance bar with one hand, shoots a long leg up into the air with practiced ease. Her ballet kit is pink and white, young and feminine, such a contrast to all the red and black that will follow her later on, and when her leg comes down she settles into fourth position and smiles at herself in the mirror, breathing elevated and feeling satisfied.

The memory is fake. Natasha’s never done ballet a day in her life. She hasn’t felt satisfied a day in her life, either.

#

She’s got this survival instinct and she’s not sure where it comes from. Remnants of her training, she decides, because what does it really matter if she lives or dies? When she brings this up to Clint – “Would it really be so bad?” – he puffs up his chest like he’s already lost her and fires off reasons for continued living, reasons their survival is imperative. He spends the rest of the week looking at Natasha like she’s glass and she regrets ever bringing it up. It’s a lesson she knows like the back of her hand, that there are just some things you keep to yourself, and wonders why she keeps trying with him.

#

It’s not the first time Loki’s tried to get under her skin, and it probably won’t be the last. It’s gratifying to see how frustrated he gets at his inability to affect her. There’s something proud inside of Natasha that wants to spit, to laugh and show him the black of her insides, shout “Do you see what they’ve done to me!?” at him in a voice bordering hysterical, as if that tiny tip of the iceberg that is her life (and that’s a term she’s always used loosely) would explain anything at all. Instead, she’s silent. This moment doesn’t call for words, and it’s more about him than it is about her. So sad and pathetic, an ex-god trussed up like a present in his binds in this remote S.H.I.E.L.D safe house. No magic, no nothing.

Natasha realizes they’ve been in nearly the same place, so to speak, and grits her teeth.

#

Clint’s waiting in one of the training rooms for their weekly spar. Most of the time they go hand to hand, but when Natasha enters the room and glimpses the bow, she knows that today isn’t the case. A small throwing knife is already slipping down out of her sleeve and for a wild moment, she wonders if Clint likes hurting her. It’s a stupid thing to think about the only other thing you trust on your plane of existence, but old habits die hard.

Sometimes they never die at all.

#

A mission goes wrong, really fucking wrong, and all Natasha remembers is pain. The thing is, she’s not sure if she’s remembering old pain or if the acute burning she feels is actually something she’s sustained. When she wakes up in the infirmary, her arm re-set and her ribs bound tightly, she’s glad the pain is real.

#

“We’re the same, you know,” Natasha says, and she realizes she’s not telling Loki this so much as she’s realizing it for herself. He scoffs, of course he does, and she fixes him with a look that would wither lesser beings. Her eyes give away nothing when he reaches out to touch his fingers to her neck, gentle at first before his whole hand closes against her throat.

Loki doesn’t squeeze, nor does he say anything, but the look in his eyes is enough. ‘ _Know your place,_ ’ it says. ‘ _We are nothing alike_.’

But Natasha has never, ever known her place, and she knows, deep down, that Loki hasn’t either.

#

The other Avengers are afraid of her. She’d be affronted if that proud thing inside her wasn’t so _glad_. They don’t say it aloud, of course, but she knows. She knows. She is a spy, a spider, a black nymph. Trust is hard won, and when has she ever won anything? She’s already defected once – who’s to say she won’t do it again?

They shouldn’t trust her. The concepts of right and wrong, of good and bad, they’d blurred so long ago in Natasha’s heart. Good and bad are arbitrary. Her webs are for herself.

#

Loki laughs into her ear as he fucks her, hard strokes as he pins her arms above her head and asserts his dominance. ‘ _Arbitrary,’_ Natasha thinks, and then she moans and curls long legs around him, driving him deeper. She snakes an arm between them and works at herself, eyes closed as he purrs terrible things into her ear, drives her toward her orgasm. When she comes apart and goes boneless beneath him, Loki slows, leans into latch his teeth onto her throat. She feels him coming hot inside of her, his entire body still, and rubs his back sweetly, her fingers snaking along the notches of his spine.

When he lowers himself onto her, quiet save his panting, Natasha feels oddly … satisfied.

#

“Are you sleeping with him?” Clint sounds judgmental and it leaves a bad taste in Natasha’s mouth.

“I am.”

That’s the end of that conversation.

#

Natasha doesn’t trust Loki, and maybe that’s what she’s needed all along. What room is there in the heart of an assassin for trust, for teamwork? She’s a round peg in a square hole and they know it but they deal with it because she’s good. Because they have a leash on her, just like they have a leash on all of them.

Under Loki, she feels unfettered, which is funny for the obvious reasons. He pushes pleasure through her body with magics she was sure were supposed to be gone and her heart beats loud in her ears, the same loudness from the Red Room.

And it’s okay.

Loki’s no fly in her web and he doesn’t rule her and they’re settled between each other’s legs and in the mirror Natalia smiles at her, satisfied, and tugs her leg higher over her head.

**Author's Note:**

> Not really sure what this was supposed to be, oops.


End file.
